Friday Round Up: A Blade Runner Food Market in NY, A Chance to Break into Comics and More

You know, Star Trek ornaments on a Christmas tree are fun and there have been many fun spaceships with lights and sounds in the past years. But do you really want to have a diorama of Spock dying to put you in the holiday spirit? Hallmark says hell yeah you do and you can buy it here. It even croaks out Spock’s last words when you tap a button. Lovely.

Okay, so we actually have some really fun news bits below that you need to see. A Blade Runner food market is being built. A comic book talent search for artists and writers has begun. The first real trailer for X-Files is out. And some more fun things. Let’s dive in.

FOOD

Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain has plans to open a big food market in New York City. So what, right? Well, he’s basing it off of the crowded, rain and neon soaked food bazaar seen in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. He will soon open a 100,000-square-foot International Food Market at the newly renovated SuperPier on Pier 57. That sounds awesome.

COMICS

If you’re interested in breaking into comics as a writer or artist, Mark Millar has a contest allowing talented creators to do just that. You can read the details at his site. He’s accepting submissions through the end of November and the winners will be paid industry rates for their work. The winners have the opportunity to do stories about Millar’s creator-owned characters like Kick-Ass, Kingsmen, Chrononauts and more in an annual anthology that he’ll publish. Good luck.

MOVIES

Avengers: Age of Ultron comes out on Blu-Ray today and we recently learned about an easter egg we’d missed before. Above is a quick shot of some gods that Thor briefly sees in his chaotic visions. Well, each is wearing an animal head in a clever reference to director Joss Whedon’s old TV show, Angel. You see a wolf, ram and hart, the names of the evil demonic partners that exerted their evil influence into the world through the law offices of Wolfram and Hart. Pretty obscure and fun and it’s nice to know Whedon still has affection for his characters.

So it’s nearly the date that Marty and Doc Brown visited in Back to the Future II: October 21, 2015. To celebrate that date, Universal is releasing the movie trilogy in a new Blu-Ray set. And apparently it will have a short movie in it called Doc Brown Saves the World, teased above. But… Christopher Lloyd looks really old. There are brief flashes of Doc Brown and then there’s mostly a melted candle version of Doc standing around. I don’t think I want to pay to see that. Even if the set comes in a badass Flux Capacitor case.

TV

I love the Watchmen comics by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons and thought the movie adaptation was alright. I didn’t think it was a disaster. Some people despise it, some love it. I’m in the middle but I like it alright. But here’s some weird news. What if director Zack Snyder tackled Watchmen again? Well, it could happen. He’s been meeting with HBO to potentially do a TV adaptation of the comics. He’d be an executive producer. As to what format it would take, that’s all speculation at this point. Because it may never move forward. But it could try to do something like a 12-episode series with each episode adapting one issue of the comic books to provide a more long-form and loyal adaptation. Would you be interested in such a project?

Here’s a new X-Files trailer that came out this week. I’m excited for it but I almost feel like I should know better. I was a huge fan of the show and watched it to the bitter end. The show did get pretty unwieldy once Mulder left and they resolved his sister’s abduction by just saying she’d actually been killed years ago. It removed the emotional hook of the investigations into the paranormal. And the second movie was one of the worst things they ever did. One thing that’s interesting in the trailer is hearing the Cigarette Smoking Man again. He very definitively was killed in the show’s series finale. But I took a second look and the hand holding the cigarette is actually very young. So maybe he only appears in flashbacks somehow? Either way, I’m excited for the show’s return this January.

Speaking of FBI mystery/paranormal shows returning, here are some quick bits on Twin Peaks. Robert Knepper, who’s played creepy dudes in Prison Break and Flash/Arrow has joined the show. And Catherine Coulson, who played the enigmatic Log Lady, passed away this past week at age 71. Too bad. Finally, the old Double R Diner from the show, which was partially burned down and rebuilt as Twede’s Cafe, is nearly done with its reconstruction to become the Double R again for the show.

Finally, the BBC announced they’ve ordered an 8-episode show that will be a Doctor Who spinoff. It’s produced by current Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat and will be overseen and produced by Patrick Ness, a Young Adult author. The show is called Class and will take place at Coal Hill School, a location that some of the Doctor’s companions have been teachers at. It will be about the teenagers that attend that school, in modern-day London, dealing with time travel and alien threats to the world.

SITE STUFF

ZOOM OUT PLEASE!!!

Finally, it’s Horror Month again at the site. Every work day, we’ll feature a review of a horror movie by a guest writer who tells you a little something about the movie and what it means to them. So please check the site regularly throughout October.